In a massive incidence of cyber attack, the data processor of Air India's passenger service system containing personal information of around 4.5 million customers have been leaked.

The data breach has affected around 45 lakh customers of Air India which led to the leak of personal data including credit cards, passports and phone numbers of passengers.

In an email to customers, Air India stated: "SITA PSS our data processor of the passenger service system (which is responsible for storing and processing of personal information of the passengers) had recently been subjected to a cybersecurity attack leading to personal data leak of certain passengers. This incident affected around 4,500,000 data subjects in the world."

"While we had received the first notification in this regard from our data processor on 25.02.2021, we would like to clarify that the identity of the affected data subjects was only provided to us by our data processor on 25.03.2021 and 5.04.2021," it added.

The breach involved personal data registered between August 26, 2011, and  February 20, 2021, with details that included name, date of birth, contact information, passport information, ticket information, Star Alliance and Air India frequent flyer data (but no passwords data were affected) as well as credit cards data, the airline informed.

"However, in respect of this last type of data, CVV/CVC numbers are not held by our data processor," Air India noted.

The national carrier informed that it had launched an investigation into the incident and took steps including securing the compromised servers, engaging external specialists of data security incidents, contacting credit card issuers and resetting passwords of its frequent flyer programme, IBNS said.